Poetic Erotica: Anais Nin

I must have been in my early 20s when I read Anais Nin's seven volumes of diaries. I loved them, hiding them from other family members and somewhere along the line, losing my collection. Since I remembered only the diaries, I thought for the 2011 lust list I would try a couple of her other efforts, specifically either The Delta of Venus or Little Birds. Oddly enough, I found a paperback with both short story collections in it. As I started reading TDoV, I seemed hauntingly familiar, so I must have been inspired in my lustful youth to read more of her works. Unfortunately, there is little to distinguish between TDoV and Little Birds.

Both are sexual vignettes running between four and forty pages in length with only the odd and occasional reappearance of characters from one story to the next. Unlike de Sade, whom I tabled after finding his Philosophy of the Bedroom to read like a demented instructional manual, Nin waxes femininely poetic, no bodice ripper though, mighty fine encounters, satisfactory per se without separations, longing to reunite and other best seller kinds of books. (In stark contrast to Vox, where the author suggests that buying such bodice rippers benefits the male purchaser who can fantasize about the purported bodily fluid stains on them and the secret indulgences of women reading alone in the dark, Nin's stories are much more arousing.)

The preface sets the intent. Nin and her fellow impoverished writers composed this erotica for a client at $1 per page. He wanted all the poetry removed. She rebels, composing a letter to him, I guess never sent:

"Dear Collector: We hate you. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone ... You have taught us more than anyone ... how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships .. the fuel that ignites it ... Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy ... We have sat around for hours and wondered how you look. If you have closed your senses upon silk, light, color, odor, character, temperament, you must be by now completely shriveled up. There are so many minor senses, all running like tributaries into the mainstream of sex, nourishing it. Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy." (And maybe a dash of saffron.)

Because these are short stories, it is difficult to align Paz characteristics of a passionate novel against them. Nonetheless, read them aloud ... forget the old (or newly revised) Joy of Sex when it comes to inspiring a partner.